It’s expensive and has only the advantage of catching CO2, while trees have more than just that. Produces O2, Cooling the near surroundings, are a save heaven for many species and therefore increases biodiversity, filters the air and soil, also makes the soil more healthy and probably many other reasons.
Humans really are weird. Trying to replace a perfectly fine bio-machinery that developed over Thousands of years with their own steel junk. I dont see why anybody would prefer that gadget over a tree.
I assume they mean how long many old growth forests have been growing (though even then thousands of years is on the younger end), not the time it took for trees to evolve.
Most plants would die because they rely on CO2 for photosynthesis.
Many sea animals would die. Oceans absorb CO2 which forms carbonic acid (H2CO3) in water. Oceans are slightly alkaline due to dissolved salts (bicarbonate and carbonate) and the carbonic acid from the absorption helps to create a stable pH. Many sea animals are highly adapted to a specific pH and would die if the ocean got either too acidic or too alkaline, so they are pretty doomed in either case.
Many humans would die because agriculture would collapse. Also breathing pure oxygen over a long period of time would be very bad because of oxygen toxicity. Yeah, pure oxygen is toxic for humans lol
Land animals, I’m not so sure, but I assume most of them would die too.
Your question isn’t entirely a hypothetical - this happened at the dawn of time, when photosynthetic life forms first evolved. First, it won’t ever happen again, no matter how good we get at scooping CO2 from the atmosphere. Second, the result is theoretically catastrophic for aerobic life forms, but it’s also a negative feedback loop, meaning it self corrects.
It’s expensive and has only the advantage of catching CO2
It doesn’t even do that well. Algae have short lifespans and when they decompose, the CO2 will go right back into the atmosphere. It’s the same reason you can’t reasonably capture CO2 with small plants like grasses, nor does the carbon inside you count as captured. The reason trees “capture CO2” is because trees live for a long time and wood decomposes very slowly, and therefore keep its carbon locked in the wood for a long time. The point of capturing carbon is you take it out of circulation for as long as possible.
There are ways to have algae capture carbon, but they are fairly involved (read: very expensive) processes whose scalability is still uncertain. Certainly not a tank in the street.
I was always under the impression that plants chemically convert CO2 and some other stuff to glucose (C6-H12-O6), right? In that case, the algae would still help, wouldnt they?
It helps if and only if the glucose stays as glucose and is not metabolized. Wood is a good application of this, as its cellulose fibers are made of glucose, in a form that is very stable and can stay locked away for a long time (especially if the tree is alive as it does not metabolize the glucose in its own wood and has anti-predation adaptations that actively guard it against other organisms). However, if the glucose decomposes, i.e. is metabolized, it is converted either directly to CO2 or into other compounds that eventually end up as CO2, essentially returning the captured carbon back to the atmosphere.
Humans really are weird. Trying to replace a perfectly fine bio-machinery that developed over Thousands of years with their own steel junk. I dont see why anybody would prefer that gadget over a tree.
Can you plant a tree capable of capturing the same amount of CO2 as those algae in that small a space? How about “refilling” the tree if it happens to die?
Society doesn’t have to lock itself to a single solution for countless varied problems. If we’re talking about a long, empty walkway, or a park, then trees are a great solution. If we’re talking about a small space that must be kept free of obstructions, such as a bus stop, then a sack or box of phytoplankton is much better suited.
This whole thread is a great example of why I’m continually disappointed with Lemmy. Half the comments are just some variation of “capitalism bad”. I hate capitalism as much as the next guy, but it sure would be nice if people would stop grinding their axes for a few minutes to talk about the actual subject of the post. Or just not comment at all if they don’t have anything relevant to say.
Cato_the_podasist did. The OP of this thread said that this post has nothing to do with capitalism and that we should therefore stop talking about it here. Cato_the_podasist argued against that saying that pointing out the source of the problem is always relevant, THEREBY IMPLYING that pointing out capitalism is always relevant (because capitalism doesnt have anything to do with this post specifically) so if its relevant here, then were is it not relevant?
(What I meant is: Capitalism is not relevant here. Maybe sometimes it is the root of the problem but not in every case (and certainly not in this one).
So I think the general idea is that you can convert more CO² to carbon in the form of sugars and O² molecules per square foot with algae than with trees. Trees would totally do the same thing if we ripped up all the concrete and buildings to replant a forest, but that process would take decades.
This can be added into existing infrastructure and helps I guess. Kinda a neat concept.
But why not just like… Do that somewhere where the mass actually makes a difference? You’d be better off dumping acres full of this shit instead of regrowing a forest. Doing it in individual tanks, sparsely within a city, is both an inefficient use of resources and fucking ugly.
Trees only purpose in a city is not to clean out CO2. It’s not even their primary purpose in a city. If it was, they’d be selecting specific species etc.
I mean ideally we would flood the ocean with Fe³ and spark a mass breed of this shit where it belongs. The biomass could work it’s way up the food chain as an added benefit too.
We created a big problem by injecting a lot of shit where it shouldn’t be. If we stop that, some pieces will bounce back.
Injecting more shit in another place means we have one big problem, that we haven’t stopped, and now a new problem that we don’t know the repurcussions of or how to reverse.
So uh, yeah, I’ll stick with the one beast we know over one we know and also another we don’t.
It’s okay to say you don’t understand marine chemistry, there is no shame in it.
The whole “seed the oceans with ferrous oxide” idea isn’t mine. In fact many better minds came up with it. You can check it out if you want, no pressure.
It’s funny, because your own ignorance is showing. There’s plenty of research to suggest that iron fertilization is controversial, which directly contradicts your (very condescending) assertion.
My point is that you’re being dismissive of very reasonable concerns that are supported by published scientific literature. Further, rather than address those concerns directly, you chose to deflect with condescension and belittlement.
So no, I’m not going to trust you, because the only thing that you’ve done to prove your point is be an ass.
It is much easier to destroy something than it is to repair it. This applies to the original changes we made through exploitation, pollution, etc. But also to the radical change you propose, it is much easier for it to have a destructive effect compared to having a positive effect.
Alright I’m just going off of what I learned in environmental science class this summer, not an expert here. There was something about algae blooms (usually caused by fertilizer runoff) being a really bad thing for local ecosystems. I’m not sure if this is relevant to what you’re saying, just throwing it out there lol
I have this fantasy where we humanity has a whole biotechnology skill tree that we never unlocked but there’s like a Renaissance waiting to happen that will one day uncover all these cool new branch’s
Exactly man… fewer floods, more biodiversity, they look nice which is better for mental health and reducing hypertension (the number one risk factor correlated with deaths), some of them give you fruits or nuts to eat… Trees are awesome.
I think any city should strive to have at least as many trees as the number of people living in it.
To echo what some other people have said, these algae tanks absolutely should not be used instead of trees. If I see a tree get chopped down and replaced with one of these, I’ll be sad and angry. However, these can go in places where trees can’t go, like rooftops. And you don’t have to either wait for a tree to grow for a decade or take a tree from somewhere else to install one. It also serves as both a seating area and can mount a solar panel on top. These and trees both have their place and should both continue to be used.
If growing algae is effective at anything, why do it in a small sealed tank in the middle of a street? Most of the oxygen we breathe is produced in the ocean, regardless of where we personally are. Why would we need to stand vaguely near a rather sealed looking algae tank? If simply growing algae is effective for oxygen replenishment and carbon capture, surely we’d be better off simply growing massive ponds of it away from city centers? Like, out in the open?
It seems like green-washing bullshit to me.
Trees provide a lot more than oxygen. They provide shade, habitation for animals, and psychological well-being for humans. Dirty fish tanks don’t provide any of those things.
People are seriously in this thread complaining about roots like they’re a reason to replace trees with algae boxes. Getting some big plant-based NFT cryptobro carbon-credit nonsense vibes.
It’s actually hilariously ignorant that you people are pretending this is a cost effective idea for carbon capture. It will, in fact, just make a bunch of dirty fishtanks that are abandoned or thrown away almost immediately.
For the conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen? That was the main point of these, the algae does that and is actually even more efficient at it than a tree. Trees do have other benefits hence why they shouldn’t be replaced, but these should go in places where trees can’t.
It’s sad that the effort to do something innovative to solve a problem can easily get dismissed via a zero effort critique by someone who never took the time to learn why it was created.
There is a tree right next to it. LOL so obviously space for trees. The trunks take up less space, its just they require pulling up surrounding sidewalk sometimes, and maintenance crew for trimming and watering in dry spells.
Trees don’t perform nearly as much work as the algae tank in sucking up C02 and outputting 02, require more maintenance, and takes longer to deploy (have to wait for tree to mature).
Well of course, you can’t give working class people any money for working, you can only give them a slave-wage. That’s why all manufacturing was outsourced to very underdeveloped countries when NAFTA was first put into place.
You can easily get away with exploiting people who have no other choice but to work for a dollar per year, but it’s much more difficult to do that to someone’s neighbor in their community.
You really think those massive, experimental water tanks won’t require more maintenance, because you have to trim trees once ever few years? Or because their roots might grow too much?
And the oceans are incredibly vast, so they provide most of the world’s oxygen! Obviously it’s hard to get a precise number but 50-70% is the accepted range.
There are many reasons to plant trees in the city but local oxygen supply isn’t one of them. Mostly trees look nice, and make people feel better by their presence. They also have a significant cooling effect, something a steamy tank full of warm algae definitely won’t help with on a summer day.
Local oxygenation is important, conversion at the source pretty much always is.
Moreover it doesn’t at all imply in lue of trees and importantly oxygenate at the same rate day and night since they’re independently lit ideally 24/7/365.
You don’t need to put algae in cities. They can be basically anywhere to absorb CO2.
Trees in cities tend to be carefully chosen for the environment. Are we in a climate where we need to put salt on the road in the winter? Choose trees that can tolerate some salt in the ground.
As much as it sucks, until we reduce the need for cars, northern rural areas are going to need to use salt for roads to be usable. Of course, if global warming gets worse it won’t be an issue
Besides the already stated fact that global warming will only make winters worse, there are better ways like cleaning the snow (ok, that’s radical) or using abrasives like sand or gravel.
For real, the people on this site deserve the hell they create for each other. If Kbin had a functioning account delete button, I'd have been gone months ago.
All these people being like “why don’t we just use trees” as if the capitalists could profit from them like this. And not to say this is cost efficient, of course planting a tree would be better for everyone, but whoever installs these things will have a contract guaranteeing them money that taxpayers will be told is being put toward green initiatives and so will be eager to part with it I guess
Guys, it's not one or the other. We can have trees and algae tanks. Trees can still offer all of the benefits they do like shade and beauty while algae tanks can be used to increase fresh oxygen. Algae is much better at absorbing CO2 than trees and providing clean air which is a big problem in a busy city.
It is one or the other because they’ll come out of the same budget - it’s an “opportunity cost”. So if the city has $1000 to spend on either a tree or a tank, then they can’t spend the same $1000 on both items. We’d need some balance between the two.
Trees offer real world benefits of carbon reduction, temperature reduction, shade for people, the psychological benefits that trees offer, some limited wildlife habitat, and they do it without much outside help. They grow themselves with decent maintenance.
But you have to build and maintain this tank. What carbon was used to do so, and what maintenance will it need. Can it offset its own cost? It offers no benefits to wildlife, no shade, no temperature reduction.
Yeah, trees leave leaf litter and can heave sidewalks with roots, but given that neither system is perfect, there’s no reason to argue that boxes of algae are better.
Why do we need to argue which is better? In some places, beautification isn’t really practical, but you can still stick these around. They don’t look hard to install or uninstall, unlike trees.
I would hate to see a tree actually replaced by one these. But no one but the meme is saying that is the plan.
I think we have reached the limit for how much we should “improve” and replace nature, if there’s no room for trees we should make room instead of accomodating yet another industrial solution to a problem created by industry in the first place.
Let me explain what I mean by that: when a driver fucks up and his car careens off the street and hits a tree, the tree stops the car very abruptly. That’s great for, say, an innocent pedestrian who was saved by hiding behind the tree, but can apply rather serious consequences to the negligent driver. Car-brained traffic engineers see it as their mission to protect drivers from any and all consequences, so they insist on ripping out all the trees to create a gigantic “clear zone” so that the car is free to careen wherever it wants without hitting anything solid. Squishy things within the clear zone, such as pedestrians, don’t enter into consideration.
In other words, one important “advantage” of these “liquid trees” over real trees is that they can be mounted on breakaway stands, so that they yield (and therefore provide no protection to any hapless bastard who might’ve been sitting on the bench at the time) when a car hits them.
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